1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charging process for charging a fee for use of each of an image forming apparatus and an external server that are connected to each other via a network to perform job processes in cooperation with each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
A method has been known for unifying the management of items such as the number of copies made by an image forming apparatus, using a management server connected to the image forming apparatus via a network, as disclosed for example in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2008-021233.
A charging system has also been known that provides a charging management server following a similar method to the above-described one for charging a user based on, for example, the number of copies made by an image forming apparatus or the like, as disclosed for example in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-117157. Regarding the management of charging, various methods have been proposed.
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-024817 proposes, regarding the management of charging, a charging system using a charging management server for charging based on the resultant product or outcome.
In these years, an MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) that is a kind of image forming apparatus has increasingly sophisticated functions, and users are expecting an increasing number of functions to be implemented by the MFP.
For example, functions such as OCR (Optical Character Reader) and translation between English and Japanese, which have been considered difficult to implement, are expected to be carried out.
While the MFP has increasingly sophisticated functions, these functions impose a heavy load on processing. Thus, a method has been proposed according to which the MFP is configured to specialize in the overall control and usual functions such as printing, while an external server cooperating with the MFP is used to achieve the extended functions.
The MFP has a USB memory print function that enables a document file in a USB memory to be directly printed.
For the sake of security, data in a USB memory is encrypted in general, and the U3 standard of SanDisk® Corporation is a common encryption standard. The U3 standard employs a method according to which a data structure in a USB memory is divided into an application area and a data area, and an encryption application stored in the application area is used to encrypt or decrypt data in the data area.
Thus, in the case where the MPP performs the USB memory print function for a USB memory including encrypted data, the encryption application, which is often configured to operate on only an operating system (OS) of a personal computer (PC), cannot be executed directly on the MFP.
Therefore, in the case where the USB memory print function is performed for a USB memory including encrypted data, the MFP may handle the function of reading data from the USB memory and the function of printing a document file in the USB memory, while an external server connected via a network, for example, may handle the function of decrypting the encrypted data in the USB memory. In this way, the MFP and the external server can cooperate with each other to execute the USB memory print function.
In the case where the external server is used so that the external server and the MFP cooperate with each other to perform processes, namely the external server is used to perform extended functions such as decryption, OCR and translation between English and Japanese, the process performed by the external server is not an independent job process. A problem arises here as follows. Specifically, the management of charging is performed between the MFP and the charging management server. Therefore, while a cooperative process using the external server is performed, until a charging process based on the cooperative process using the external server is completed between the MFP and the charging management server, another job process such as copying that is completed by the MFP only without requiring the external server cannot be executed.
Further, if a fee is charged on the basis of a resultant product or outcome of a process such as decryption, OCR or translation between English and Japanese to be performed by the external server, a problem is that the fee for use could exceed an available amount because the fee for use cannot be predicted, and accordingly the job process could be ended without completed.